It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
